Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman share memories

Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, former Celtics teammates and road roommates, embraced when they saw each other for the first time in five years yesterday at Worcester Country Club. When they played together for 10 years in the 1950s and early ’60s, they were both 6-foot-1, but age has forced the 86-year-old Sharman to stoop, so Cousy stood a few inches taller.

Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, former Celtics teammates and road roommates, embraced when they saw each other for the first time in five years yesterday at Worcester Country Club.

When they played together for 10 years in the 1950s and early ’60s, they were both 6-foot-1, but age has forced the 86-year-old Sharman to stoop, so Cousy stood a few inches taller.

“I’m growing in my old age,” Cousy, 84, jokingly told Sharman. “I’ll be big enough to be a center soon.”

The octogenarians, whom many believe formed the greatest backcourt in NBA history, swapped stories and talked basketball. You should have been there.

Sharman traveled from his home in Los Angeles for the induction tonight of former Lakers star Jamaal Wilkes into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield. Cousy, a past president of the Hall of Fame, will help introduce the late Don Barksdale, his former Celtics teammate who also will be inducted. So, Cousy invited Sharman and his wife Joyce to have lunch with him and his wife Missie yesterday at Worcester CC, where Cooz is a 12-handicap.

“We’re obviously going to live to be 100,” Cousy said before turning serious, “but we might not get another opportunity to do this, so this adds some meaning to the occasion.”

“It’s a big, big thrill for me,” Sharman said of seeing his former teammate again.

Cousy helped Holy Cross win the 1947 NCAA championship as a freshman and went on to capture six NBA championships with the Celtics. Sharman won four NBA titles.

Cousy was the 1957 NBA MVP, a two-time NBA All-Star Game MVP, a 13-time All-Star, All-NBA first team 10 times, and All-NBA second team twice. Sharman was the 1955 NBA All-Star Game MVP, an eight-time All-Star, All-NBA first team four times, and All-NBA second team three times.

Both were named to the NBA’s 25th and 50th anniversary teams and have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. The Celtics retired both of their jerseys, Cousy’s No. 14 and Sharman’s No. 21. Many believe they formed the NBA’s best backcourt, and 60 years later they’re still great friends even though they live on opposite coasts.

“They both wanted to win,” Missie said, “and they weren’t jealous about what the newspapers said about them.”

As the point guard, Cousy led the NBA in assists for eight consecutive years. Sharman converted many of Cousy’s passes into baskets.

“He set everybody up,” Sharman said. “If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t even have made the team.”

Cousy would have none of that, insisting that Sharman was a great defender as well as a great shooter.

“None of us paid much attention to defense in those days,” Cousy said, “but Billy did.”

Sharman shot 42.6 percent, low by today’s standards, but high for a guard in those days. He also led the NBA in free-throw percentage seven times, including his 93.2 percent in 1958-59 that stood as the league record for nearly two decades.

“In my mind, he was the primary target,” Cousy said. “All I had to do was wait because he’d eventually wear the guy out who was guarding him because he never stood still. He kept moving, moving, moving.”

It may sound as if Sharman was the Ray Allen of his day, but Cousy said an important difference existed.

“By design, Allen uses two or three picks to finally get himself open momentarily,” Cousy said. “Billy used to just do it on his own and run circles around his guy.”

Sharman is hard of hearing, but he had no trouble answering when asked what he liked best about playing with Cousy.

“When he passed the ball to me,” Sharman said.

Sharman and Cousy laughed. Then Cousy told the story about the time he and Sharman started for the East in an All-Star Game at the old Boston Garden in 1957. Sharman threw a pass the length of the court for Cousy, who had snuck behind the defense, but the ball sailed into the basket instead for two points. There were no 3-pointers back then.

“My remark to him after the game,” Cousy recounted with tongue planted firmly in cheek, “was, ‘Don’t you ever pass?’ ”

“That’s a true story,” Sharman said.

Cousy got players the ball in scoring position so he was the ultimate teammate, but he wasn’t such a great roommate. Cousy used to have nightmares and walk in his sleep talking French, a language he spoke as a child. During one nightmare, Cousy sat up in his bed while asleep, shouted and flailed his arms, knocking a nightstand lamp onto Sharman’s head.

“He said it was an accident, but everybody thought he did it in purpose,” Sharman said.

The next night, Cousy shouted again while having the same dream. This time, however, he woke up and turned the lamp on to see Sharman under the covers protecting himself in case the lamp came his way again.

After his playing days ended, Sharman coached the Utah Stars to the 1971 ABA championship, and a year later he coached the Lakers to a league-record 33-game winning streak and the NBA title. Sharman, John Wooden and Lenny Wilkens are the only three people who have been voted into the Hall of Fame as both players and coaches.

“I was not surprised that he was successful,” Cousy said, “because he was about as determined as a player and a coach as I’ve ever met.”

Fights were common in the NBA in the 1950s. Cousy recalled that Sharman would never start a fight, but he wouldn’t turn away from one, either.

“He had a short fuse,” Cousy said. “If he was provoked, he would retaliate immediately and very aggressively. He’d always pick on the 6-10 guy, and he’d be whaling away and punching a guy’s stomach because he couldn’t reach up higher, and all hell would break loose.”

Sharman tried as hard as he could in everything, so Cousy wouldn’t play H-O-R-S-E with him. Cousy wanted to have fun and try shots from behind the backboard, but Sharman took only shots he knew he would make — free throws or bank shots from the sideline.

“He never missed, so it was a bore to play with him,” Cousy said. “He’d bore you to death besides beating you to death.”

So Cousy would play H-O-R-S-E with Togo Palazzi, his fellow Holy Cross graduate.

In April, the Lakers celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1971-72 team. Yesterday, Joyce wore a ring commemorating the 40th anniversary with a diamond for each decade that has passed, and Bill wore a 2010 NBA championship ring the Lakers gave him. The Celtics gave Cousy one of their 2008 NBA championship rings, but he keeps it in a safe deposit box.

“Worcester is a little different than Los Angeles,” Cousy said, “for social events. Where would I go with it?”

Sharman later served as general manager, then president of the Lakers, before retiring in 1990. As GM, Sharman drafted Magic Johnson after winning a coin flip with Chicago for the top pick. Sharman always called heads, but he agreed to allow the Bulls, who weren’t drawing well, to call the coin flip as a promotion to sell tickets. The Bulls polled their fans, and they voted to call heads. The coin came up tails, and the Lakers got Magic.

In high school in California, Sharman was a star quarterback, basketball player and nationally ranked junior tennis player. In the early 1950s, in addition to playing for the Celtics, he played in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm system. Though he never played in a major league game, he was called up to Brooklyn late in the 1951 season and was sitting on the Dodgers’ bench when Bobby Thomson homered off Ralph Branca in the ninth inning — the famous “Shot Heard ’Round the World” — to win the NL pennant for the Giants.

After Sharman retired as an NBA player, he worked briefly as a golf pro at a course in Massachusetts before getting into coaching.

“I’ve never been around a more diverse, effective and successful athlete in my lifetime,” Cousy said.

Sharman used to lie about his age, pretending he was a couple of years younger, and Cousy use to lie about his height, insisting he was 5-10 instead of 6-1.

“I used to go for the sympathy vote,” Cousy said, “so people in the stands would say, ‘Look at those big bullies picking on that little, skinny 5-10 guy with the hairy legs.’ ”

When asked if he considered himself a Celtic or a Laker, Sharman had his wife answer.

“He’s been a Laker for 40 years,” Joyce said, “and still gets a paycheck from them, so he’s a Laker.”

So a Laker and a Celtic had lunch together yesterday in Worcester, and there was no animosity whatsoever. Just lots of memories and laughs.

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